Same document no. for Order, Delivery and Invoice

[Former Member]

Dear All,

My client has requirement that "system should generate same document no. (Internal) for Order, Delivery and invoice". is it possible with standard configuration in SAP?

Eg. When i create Order, system propose order no. = "00084816".

if i create delivery with the reference of that order (with Full picked quantity) System should propose same delivery no. and invoice no i.e "00084816"

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi,

in standard is not possible to guarantee that you´ll get same document number from sales order to invoice. While using different documents types and different number ranges, many things may happen during the way, invoice splits, document deletions... etc that will make number ranges mismatches.

Regards,

JM

[jobis · Accepted solution]

Hi Sashi,

AS already mentioned by Joan, maintaining same document no. for sales order and delivery document may not be feasible, as one sales order can have more than one delivery documents and vice-versa.

In case of a single document only being referred from a single document, this will be possible. For example , in the case of excise invoice (CIN).

In such cases by having the same no. ranges assigned and having a validation at a user exit level, we can achieve it. ( we had it, in one of our past support project, I dont remember much details of it now.)

Thanks

Jobi

[Former Member]

Thank you everyone for very well replies.

When my client had asked for this requirement i was aware that it is not a very wise requirement but that time they were kinda adamant. But later somehow i managed to convince them that they must use different no. ranges only to avoid the complications regarding documentations and document monitoring. and they agreed

Again Thanks every one

[former_member182378]

Sashi,

This shows that we (clients, consultants) are all changing and "maturing". Our decisions and mindsets change with different inputs

Thanks for updating the thread.

TW

[Former Member]

Hi Shashi,

I  agree with every one and every one has explained very well.

Is it not possible through external number range? If you assign  external number range to all the document types.

I know it is very difficult if sales order number are very huge..

Regards,

DSP

[Former Member]

Hi Sashi,

I had the same issue with one of our customers. We agreed to mention the same PO number on each document related to a specific order.. Thus, despite the fact that documents still have different numbering, a set of the documents related to the same order are printed with the same PO, what helps customer to relate&work with accordance to the PO

Thanks,
Sabina.

[moazzam_ali]

Hi

This thread has already been answered and I agree with all members that neither it is possible nor a wise decision to do so.

I just want to add my comments here that in my company implementation consultant configured same number rage for sale order, delivery and billing i.e. 84000000 to 84999999 for order delivery and billing. Although numbers were always different but there was very little gap. If sale order number is 84054321 than delivery could be 84054150 and so on.

Now after 4 years of Go Live client has asked me to change this because it is creating problem for users and for external auditors as well. Now we are going to change number range for sale order and delivery but for invoice it would be same.

In this OP's original requirement it is not a good idea to do this. Convince your client with some logical explanation.

Thank$

[Shiva_Ram]

is it possible with standard configuration in SAP?

No, it is NOT possible through standard configuration, the  number range object RV_BELEG is used by all the SD documents (for example sales order, invoice). So you can't assign the same number range to different SD document types.

You may need to have user exit to handle the situation, after having number range assignment (may be external) that has alpha numeric series. For example for sales order it can be SO100000, for delivery DL100000 and for Invoice IN100000 etc,

Again, you must consider various factors mentioned before by other members before you make a decision.

Regards,

[former_member182378]

Shiva,

Thanks for your post!

So you can't assign the same number range to different SD document types.

I create number range Z1, can I not assign it to ZOR and ZLF?

TW

[Former Member]

Hi TW,

You can assign Z1 to ZOR and ZLF but system will generate the number from same series but not the same number.

if 10001 number is generated for ZOR then 10002 number will be generated for ZLF.

Your requirement is not possible in standard as system generate numbers for all sales document from single Number Range Object RV_BELEG.

Creating Z Number range object for sales doc, delivery and billing,  and calling it with document category while sales document generation could be a solution but not sure about the feasibility as it could be a technical challenge.

ATP

[former_member182378]

ATP,

Thanks for your post! Just wanted to clarify the assignment / use of same number range in several document types, related to different process steps (order, delivery, billing etc.)

TW

[Former Member]

In order to do that you would need to prevent orders, deliveries and invoices being combined or splitted according to defined standard criteria.

You can let system assign document numbering and make a report that uses table VBFA to show linked documents for active orders.

[Jelena]

+1 to the comments above. This requirements doesn't actually make a lot of sense. It could be because it worked this way in some legacy system, but the legacy system probably didn't have the nice document flow button.

Besides it could actually be helpful for support when the documents have different number ranges. E.g. when someone sends our team a question they could send us a document number without saying whether it's order or delivery or invoice. But just by looking at the number we can tell what it is and which transaction to go to. Now if you have the same number - what would you do with it in SAP? You'd probably end up going to VA03 and then using document flow anyway because the information is in delivery or invoice. Seems like a moot point.

[former_member182378]

Sashi,

This is an interesting requirement from client but you should convince him not to go forward with this design. Different number ranges for different process steps (e.g. for delivery starting with 8...., for invoice starting with 9......) will help users to easily identify, type of document. And then input the required transaction code (for delivery, VL03N; for bill, VF03 etc.). Reporting will also be easy, by following different number ranges for process steps.

And there will be extra costs (testing) because this requirement is non-standard.

TW